


Lavender and Something Else

by Alyzeryn



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Bittersweet, Bittersweet Ending, Dryad Mollymauk, Gen, Light Angst, Molly is back and Yasha is #CONFLICTED, Mollymauk Tealeaf Lives, Platonic Relationships, Possibly Inaccurate Tarot Reading, everything is beautiful and some things hurt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2019-11-17 16:50:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18102530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alyzeryn/pseuds/Alyzeryn
Summary: The first time, Yasha thought she had been hearing things.The second time, she tried to ignore it. There was no point entertaining the impossible, even if she was beginning to have her own doubts.The third time, there was no denying it. That familiar coat, the purple skin, and a smell so familiar - so him - that Yasha would have thought she was hallucinating if the proof was not sitting right in front of her with a charming smile and a flick of his tail.'Molly...?'





	1. Something Else (Yasha POV)

The first time, Yasha thought she was just hearing things.

A laugh so familiar that her heart flooded with a warmth and affection she had not felt in what could have been years. Her head snapped towards the sound, a name she hadn’t spoken in __so long__  already on her lips, but the crowd was heavy and finding a single person was impossible. Finding a single __dead__  person, even more so. But Yasha knew what she heard… or she thought she knew. His accent had not been especially unique; anyone could sound like him, she rationalized. And, choking off that momentary flutter of joy, she shook off her hopes and followed after the rest of the Nein.

The second time, she tried to brush it off.

After a long battle and a blisteringly hot day that left even Jester begging for water, Yasha was swaying on her feet and ready to collapse onto anything vaguely horizontal. Her own body felt too heavy, and she moved along only half-conscious, following the low mutterings of her friends - mostly Jester and Caduceus - as they tried to put a positive spin on the battle they had almost lost. But none of them wanted a positive spin. They all wanted a heavy meal, a warm bed, and as much alcohol as it would take to send them into a dreamless sleep.

As she trudged along, Yasha’s daydreams of deep tankards were interrupted by someone bumping into her arm and sweeping along without a word. She opened her mouth, and her eyes, ready to snap at whoever got to close-

The words died in her throat at the flash of a familiar coat. Purples and reds and golds and greens and far too many patterns that sent her head spinning just trying to count them all. And the _smell_ … lavender and something else he had never told her. ‘Another one of my many secrets’, he had said with a wink and a grin and an amused flicker of his tail. But then she had found a vial of oil by her bedroll that night, a vial she still had even though it had been empty for nearly a year now. She hadn’t been able to find that same oil since. But it still smelled like him, so she kept it.

Yasha did not realize she had stopped to stare at the departing figure until a small hand tugged at her wrist.

“Yasha?” Nott’s croaking voice asked. One of her eyes were swollen shut, and her mask was cracked and perched unevenly on her face. The arm that wasn’t gently holding onto Yasha was tucked firmly against her chest in a makeshift sling.

“Are you okay?”

Yasha looked down at Nott, then back up at where the person had been, then back at Nott, and forced a nod. Without another word, the pair made their way back to the inn. Yasha tried not to glance back over her shoulder, but the smell lingered even as she fell asleep that night.

The third time, Yasha had been alone.

She had been gone for… weeks? Maybe. She had a hard time knowing how much time had passed when her god called her away. It was just a swirl of emotions and vague memories that Yasha had long since accepted as being just another part of her life she would never really understand. What she did understand, though, was that she always knew where her friends were when she came back to herself and how to find them. And when Yasha had woken in that field, she hadn’t wasted a moment in getting to her feet and starting the long trek to the nearest town, following the same tug in her chest that urged her towards her friends every time she was snatched away.

As she crossed beneath a stone archeway draped in colorful silks, she was met with vibrant colors and lively music and tantalizing smells that she had never experienced before. It was a festival. Yasha didn’t know what festival. She did know that she wanted to find whatever smell that was. Her growling stomach refused to be swayed to do anything else, and she followed her nose towards the scent. It was cinnamon and cloves and… something else. Something light but sweet, and Yasha’s stomach growled again as she took a deep breath.

Her friends could wait a little longer, right?

A gentle smile tugged at the corners of her lips as she made her way through the decorated streets. Vendors called out to her, uncaring of her general demeanor and the massive sword hanging over her back, grinning vibrantly and offering samples. She took a few, a taste of honeyed cheese on warm bread here and a drink of spiced wine there. One woman crowned her with a wreath of flowers and gave her another when she asked, which immediately went into her notebook. Musicians and dancers weaved around her, and one even managed to get a huff that could be a laugh out of her as they flung their fiery red scarf over her shoulders and spun off, fluidly drawing another from a pouch on their hip and vanishing with a wink.

She walked aimlessly, just enjoying the moment, until someone skirted around her and rushed towards a milling crowd. It was too thick to see through for most people. Fortunately, Yasha was not most people, and she peered over their heads with ease to see what was so interesting.

At the sight of a familiar tattooed hand, a head of pale purple hair and pierced, curling horns, and a sharp grin, the contentment - and, dare she say, happiness - in her chest turned to ice that settled deep into her core and spread.

She thought she had been hallucinating. Or hearing what she wanted to hear. Or something that made much more sense than what she was currently seeing. But it was hard to deny the truth before her eyes.

“Molly…” The word was hardly a whisper, a shaky exhale that she could barely hear over the awed crowd.

But his head snapped up from the three-card spread he had been reading for the person sitting opposite him. His eyes, as red as the scarf draped around her neck, scanned the crowd briefly before landing on her, and Yasha’s breath caught in her throat.

But then he gave her that grin she knew he only gave crowds and customers and a cheesy wink, and the air rushed back into her lungs with a trembling breath.

__He doesn’t remember me._ _

That bothered her less than her next realization.

 _He doesn’t remember anything_.

She could tell by the way he moved and breathed. His fingers fumbled slightly over the cards, hesitating briefly before handling each. He shifted in his seat and adjusted his coat almost constantly. It was like he was uncomfortable in his own body, which made some sense. His body was… unexpected.

He was still him, but there were some new additions. Covering the top half of his face, like a mask, rough bark curved over the tops of his cheeks, traveled over his face and head, and flared out at the base of his horns. Emerging from behind his left ear, a trail of flowers winded its way down the side of his neck, vanishing into the plunging neckline of his loose, cotton shirt and blending beautifully and seamlessly into the garden inked into his arm and ending in that snake’s head on the back of his hand. His hair was paler, too. Closer to white than the dark purple it had been.

What really caught her eye, though, was the line of pink moss that spanned almost the entire width of his chest. It was thickest near the center and then gradually faded back into his violet skin. It reminded her of the moss Caduceus used whenever he healed them.

But, despite all the new additions, it __was__  Mollymauk, and Yasha could not stop herself from staring even if she wanted to.

The last time she had seen him, he had been alive and setting down to sleep just after they had left Hupperdook. The last time she had seen his coat, it had been bloody and fluttering in a winter breeze, mounted on a gnarled branch that had marked his shallow grave.

Now it, and Molly himself, was here. Very much alive… and staring her down. She did not realize most of the crowd had dispersed until she was standing right in front of him.

“Like what you see?” he asked, a laugh behind his words. It was not a true laugh, Yasha knew. It was an uncomfortable laugh. A laugh that said ‘I can’t say what I want to say, so I’m going to laugh and hope you leave.’ He had perfected that laugh. She had heard it far too many times whenever someone saw his horns or his tail or his eyes and got that sort of smile she knew to watch out for, that sort of grin that said they had a taste for the ‘exotic.’ That sort of grin, she remembered with some amusement, that usually fell when she came up behind Molly with her arms crossed and lightning in her eyes.

Yasha smiled in return, just as forced, but her words were honest. “Those cards are beautifully painted. Where did you get them?”

__You accidentally got them from a curio shop in Deastok. They had been inside a jewelry box you were buying for Ornna._ _

Well, his __old__ deck - the incomplete one Beau kept with her - had been from Deastok. But the ones in his hands now were almost identical, golden lining on a black background that appeared darker and deeper than shadow when looked at head on. When tiled just right in the sunlight, it was glimmering and iridescent. And the other sides were just as vibrantly and beautifully painted, with so many artfully blended colors that Yasha would spend hours just staring at a single card, trying to find where one ended and another began.

She wondered briefly if the faces of these cards were just as lovely.

“Oh, these old things?” He picked up a card - The World - twirled it around his fingers, and made it vanish with a flick of his wrist.

_It’s inside his sleeve._

“These were handed down from my father, and from my father’s father, and so on and so forth for as long as my family can remember.”

 _ _You’ve told me that one before.__  Yasha vaguely remembered him trying out his lies on her. ‘Just for fun,’ he had said, but there had been a fear in his eyes that showed up whenever he danced around the topic of his forgotten past. So she had let him practice and helped him perfect them until they were so convoluted that no one would question it. __I told you to scrap it.__

“Well, they’re very pretty.”

“Indeed they are.” His smile softened into something more genuine, and he gestured to the empty space across from him. “Care for a reading?”

“I don’t have any money.” She had woken up with nothing but the clothes on her back, her notebook, and her weapon. Everything else had seemingly vanished. Not that that was new to her, but it was frustrating. She hated having to go shopping.

Molly just laughed. “Neither do I, but that’s never stopped me. Tell you what, though? I’ll trade you. A reading for…” His eyes trailed over her until they found the flower crown. “One of those flowers. They match my coat.”

“I’m pretty sure everything and nothing does.”

She sat down, removed her crown, and carefully placed it on his head. As she moved her hand, it unthinkingly followed a familiar path, pushing a strand of hair from his face and tucking it behind his pointed ear. Like she had done so many times in the past, especially before Molly cut his hair short not long after they first met. When she realized what she had done, Yasha snatched her hand back, her face warm with mortification and her eyes focused intently on her fidgeting hands in her lap.

“Sorry, you just-”

“Remind you of someone you knew?” he finished, pulling away from her. But his smile was still the same, soft and honest and maybe a little bit teasing, and it loosened the ball of anxiety tightening in Yasha’s chest somewhat. “Yeah, I get that a lot. Guess I just have one of those faces.”

Before she could respond, Molly pulled his cards out, the World back where it belonged, and started shuffling the deck. His hands were confident and deft and agile as he handled the deck, the cards practically floating over his fingers. With every flourish, the golden ink pressed into the back of the cards glimmered in the sunlight.

Yasha had tried that once, shuffling the deck with half as much showmanship as he did, and she nearly lost one of the cards. Even with Molly guiding her through the steps and her eyes cast firmly on her hands, she had never been able to manage it.

Molly, on the other hand, was watching her as his fingers moved seemingly of their own accord.

“So, what would you like to ask the cards?”

The answer was already on her lips before she could truly think about it. It was an answer that birthed a question that answered itself. “Can I ask about a friend? He’s… missing.”

Whether or not he noticed the way her voice wavered on that last word, he did not point it out.

“Of course!” As Molly said this, he gave the cards one last flourish and palmed them all into a neat deck into his palm. “The cards are always listening. Ask whatever you wish, darling.”

There were a number of questions she could have asked, but she doubted the cards would have any answers. That did not stop her from asking.

“How is he doing?”

For a second, Molly’s smile flickered and dimmed. His eyes grew glassy, and his tail stopped twitching behind him as it always did. He was perfectly still, but it lasted for only a moment. And when he was back, it was like he had never gone at all.

“And who is this mysterious ‘he,’ hmm?” asked Molly as he pulled three cards and laid them out, face down, on the multicolored scarf between them. “A long lost love, perhaps? Or maybe an old friend turned enemy? I’m going to need something a little more to work with, dear. Like a name, perhaps?”

Yasha did not answer. Molly had always had a habit of exploring whatever town they visited, learning as many names as he could, in the hopes that someone would ask about someone he had become acquainted with. It was one of his many tricks. She would not - could not - give him that satisfaction.

__Mostly._ _

“Or maybe his appearance! What does he look like?”

Still, Yasha did not answer.

She did not know how to.

Molly shrugged. “Fine, keep your secrets, but if you’re not satisfied, don’t blame me.”

He reached out for the first card, but before he could flip it over-

“You remind me a lot of him.”

His hand stilled over the card, and Molly lifted his head to meet Yasha’s gaze. Whatever he saw in there, she did not know, but it was enough to make him drop his hands into his lap and look at her with the most sincere face she had seen since she first walked up to him.

“He was a bit of an asshole, never really cared about what other people thought of him and made sure everyone knew it…” Yasha told him, her mind spiraling into memories she had tried so hard to forget, “but kind. Very kind. He always tried to make every place he left better than when he found it.”

“And would you say he succeeded?”

Molly’s voice was low, contemplative, and his eyes were searching for an answer Yasha did not possess.

She could give him the answer to the question he voiced, though. “Yes. He certainly left me better.”

__He left us all better._ _

A gentle hand on hers grounded Yasha to the present, and Molly’s grin warmed her to her very core, fully melting the icy apprehension that had choked her earlier.

“He sounds like a good friend.”

“He is. I miss him dearly.”

“Well, let’s see if the cards can help us learn a bit about this friend of yours. Who knows? Maybe they’ll tell you where to find him.”

His hand, far more sure than it had been earlier, flipped over the first card: The High Priestess, reversed.

“It appears this wild and mysterious world has your friend in a bit of a bind,” Molly mused. But there was something about him that had suddenly changed. His smile was a bit more unsteady, his mind wandering somewhere Yasha could not follow. Not like she used to. He tried to brush it off, but it lingered. “He has lost faith in himself and so judges the going-ons of this world with the eyes of another. If you find him, tell him to relax a bit and to trust himself more, hmm? He’s smarter than he thinks.”

“Yeah, I will.”

Molly nodded a bit too quickly and then turned over the second card: The Lovers.

“Interesting….”

He did not say more, but he did not have to. Yasha remembered the Lovers from what felt like another lifetime.

Molly had always likes to play up the romantic aspect of it, especially to the dewy-eyed and the desperate looking for answers to a problem far beyond what the cards could tell them. But, after all the show and the glitter and the pageantry, when it was just the two of them curled together on their shared bedroll and neither of them could sleep for similar reasons, Molly would go through the cards and tell her what they really meant. And the Lovers was one Yasha had held close to her heart for reasons unknown even to her.

Upright, he had told her, it meant new relationships soon to form. It praised the value of communication and cooperation and even urged one to seek out those new connections. Reversed, though, it spelled the potential end of a relationship. Differing beliefs, values misaligned, it urged you to reconsider whether or not the relationship you had was truly one meant to last.

This one was upright.

Finally, Molly reached for the last card. His fingers shook slightly as he flipped it over to reveal -

A note.

A familiar note.

An achingly familiar note that made Yasha’s stomach lurch.

 __‘Your name is Mollymauk Tealeaf, and you’re a member of the Mighty Nein._ _ _~~_If_ ~~ _ __When you awaken, head towards The Evening Nip tavern in Zadash. We’ll find you there.’_ _

“You wouldn’t happen to know who these ‘Mighty Nein’ are, would you?”

If he had asked that question to anyone else, it would have sounded teasing, maybe even a little sarcastic, and could have been brushed off with a simple ‘No.’ But Yasha could hear the plea driving his words even though he tried so hard to mask it.

 _Please tell me you know_ , he did not say. _I’m begging you._

And Yasha wanted to tell him. She wanted to grab his hands and take him to the tavern where she knew their friends would be. She wanted to eat and drink and catch him up on everything he had missed since then. She wanted to wrap him up in her arms and never let him go, bury her face in his hair and inhale that familiar scent that she could never seem to find. She wanted Molly, her best friend, her brother, back.

But Yasha had never been one to get what she wanted. If she were being honest with herself, she did not think she deserved it. First it had been her wife, and then Molly… what made her think she deserved anything when she only brought bad luck to those closest to her?

It was better for everyone if her dreams remained dreams.

“No, I don’t.”

Her resolve wavered when she saw the way his hope crumbled. His face was still a mask of playful joy, but his eyes….

“Thought not.”

He buried his sadness beneath a chuckle and the wave of his hand, tucking the note away in his sleeve and revealing the final card: The Star, reversed.

“I think…” Molly began, and then he swallowed.

Yasha did not push him. She recognized the sudden swell of emotions that had settled over him - fear, confusion, a longing to understand, frustration at missing __something__  - and waited. She had spent many times before waiting for Molly to ride that wave out, to brush it aside and pretend nothing was wrong. She had never agreed with that, but it had been Molly’s life. And who was she to judge, truly? Pushing past pains aside was what she seemed to excel at, even if they seemed intent on emerging at the most inconvenient times.

“I think I need to go.”

His thoughts and his sudden movements made Yasha start, and she could only watch, frozen in shock and confusion, as his trembling hands gathered his stuff in record time. It was only when he was wishing her a good day, a crumbling smile on his face, that Yasha was able to move. She reached out and took his hand, her touch far more delicate than she was used to.

To Molly, though, it felt like a vise, though it was barely a curl of her fingers around his. A shackle around his hand that kept him rooted to the spot as this titan of a woman slowly lumbered to her feet to stand over him. He thought she would be angry, that she would deck him for cheating her out of a proper reading, but her face was open and soft and warm and…

Something loosened in his chest.

She could read this all in his face.

He deflated and slowly slid his hand out of hers. Behind him, Molly’s tail, lined with small flowers, curled tightly around his calf and squeezed.

The two of them stood in an unsure silence for a moment, a still bubble among the chaos and revelry of the festival. A world just for them.

And then Molly broke it with a laugh. It was low and unsteady, but it was better than the fear that had paled his face moments earlier. The hand Yasha had held earlier went up to his hair, his long fingernails scratching at the place where his horns and the bark met.

“Sorry, not sure what got into me just then. Maybe we could forget that every happened, and I could-”

“I understand.”

Somehow, she understood. Not in a way she could put into words, but she understood on a deeper, more intimate level. He was scared of something beyond her, and she understood that he was not quite ready to face it yet. Just like when Jester had cast Zone of Truth on him so long ago, he was twitchy and afraid and desperately looking for a way out before anyone could cast judgement on him. And, as Yasha had learned, the best way to help him was to dispel any expectations of judgment long before they could take root.

“I hope you find what you’re looking for,” she said. “Whatever it is you’re looking for.”

He smiled. “Me too. And your friend? Wherever he is, I hope he knows that he’s got the best waiting for him.”

“I’m sure he does.”

Slowly, Yasha unwound the scarf the dancer had thrown over her shoulders and draped it around Molly’s neck. It smelled sharp, and Yasha could not place it. Whatever it was, it fit him far more than it fit her, and she told him so as she evened it out.

“It goes with your eyes.”

“Everything does, dear. And as payment for this…” He reached into his bag, rummaged for a second with his tongue poking out, and pulled out a stoppered vial and a charm hanging from a strip of cloth that looked like it had come from his multicolored coat. The vial was full of translucent, pale gold liquid that sparkled in the mid-morning light. The charm, though, he reached up and braided into her hair. He did not even hesitate, like he braided things into strangers’ hair on a regular basis. His fingers were sure as he quickly wove the charm into her messy tresses. When he was finished, it hung against her neck and just behind her ear, and the metal was cold against her skin.

“Can’t get something for nothing, now can I?” he added with a wink. “And, speaking of that, name’s Mollymauk Tealeaf. At your service,…?”

“Yasha.”

“At your service, Yasha.” He gave a dramatic bow that had her chuckling and rolling her eyes. “You have been an absolute delight. While I wish I could stay longer, the day is still young, and I have many, many more readings to give before it’s over. I hope to see you again in the near future, though.”

She nodded, an honest smile on her face. “Yeah, me too.”

Despite everything, she desperately wanted to see him again. Even if it brought her more pain to know every second he spent with her put him in danger, Yasha could not imagine a life without Mollymauk Tealeaf, her dearest friend and the closest thing she ever had to family. And she doubted the sprout of hope she felt for him in her chest would let her stay away from Molly for long.

With a kiss on the back of her hand and a grandiose wave, Molly glided off into the crowd. She watched him until all she could see was a pair of horns and a bobbing flower crown, but those too were soon swallowed up by the festival-goers. Tucking the vial into her pocket, Yasha turned away from where he had been and started to make her way towards the nearest tavern in search of her friends.

The smell of lavender and something else followed her the entire way there.


	2. Lavender (Mollymauk POV)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'Patience.'
> 
> That’s all the voice ever said, and Molly wasn’t sure if patience had ever been one of his strongest virtues but it surely wasn’t one now.
> 
> [The words in single quotes and italics belong to the Moonweaver. The words that are only italicized are Molly's own thoughts.]

It was hard to be down on a day like today.

 

The town had been in the thrall of pre-festival excitement for weekend. With each passing day, the joy that lurked beneath every casual interaction swelled. As the decorations started going up, it only got stronger until the thrill was palpable, thick enough to drown and as cloyingly sweet as the candy apples being sold on nearly every corner. And when the day finally arrived, no one could be bothered to suppress their happiness, and people jumped and sang and danced in the streets as the party got into full swing.

 

With the sights and the sounds and the smells of the festival, finding a single soul that was less than elated was difficult. Unless one knew where to look, of course.

 

Then again, Mollymauk thought, no one would think to look in the thick of things.

 

Not to mention, he hid it very well. With a practiced grin and an air of charm, no one, especially the crowd drunk on excitement as they were, could tell that his smile did not quite reach his eyes. Or that his voice wobbled whenever certain cards were drawn. Or, and this was his favorite, that in the middle of readings, he’d seem to vanish and go somewhere far, far away, only to return mere seconds later with a swell of noise. They all saw what they wanted to see, so Mollymauk would give them whatever they wanted to see.

 

He gave reading after reading with sly grins and playful winks and sympathetic smiles, anything that the situation warranted. And the audience ate it all up, most walking away with, at most, a skip in their step. Others were more composed, but walked with a straighter back and a clearer head, like a weight had been finally taken off their shoulders. While Molly was glad he could help, he wished he could join them, too, and that little seed of frustration and jealousy took root and only grew with each reading he completed.

 

Not for the first time, as he watched a young couple walk away from him hand-in-hand, a voice whispered in his mind. It was soft and soothing, a comforting presence that had been there for months ever since he woke up.

 

‘ _Patience_.’

 

That single word, dancing through this mind like a gentle breeze, eased the jealousy in his chest like a balm....

 

But it did nothing for the frustration.

 

Because that’s all it had said: Patience. That’s all the voice ever said, and Molly wasn’t sure if patience had ever been one of his strongest virtues but it surely wasn’t one now. He ran his clawed hands through his hair and dropped his face into his palms. What, exactly, was he supposed to be patient for? And how would he know when whatever it was he was waiting for had shown up? Would it come down like a flash of lightning? Or, even better, maybe it’d bump into him with a sign that said ‘Here is Mollymauk’s Supposed Destiny - Handle with Care.’ While he was always one to dabble in a little mystery, just this once he would really appreciate the universe being a bit more obvious.

 

As if hearing his thoughts, the voice let out an airy chuckle, and he could feel amusement curling around his soul along with an apology. Whoever that voice belonged to, they were sorry. What for, Molly wasn’t sure, but he guess he could forgive them, just this once.

 

‘ _Much obliged...._ ’

 

There was a pause and an uneasy breath, and Mollymauk tilted his head, lifting an ear as if he could hear the voice a little better on the wind if he just got a little closer.

 

‘ _I’m sorry, but just wait a little longer, darling..._ ’

 

.....Well, THAT was more than Molly could have anticipated. ‘A little longer’ wasn’t really specific, but he’d take it over the infuriating silence any day. Taking a deep breath, he lifted his head from his hands and turned towards the passing crowd with a vibrant grin, catching the eyes of a few and urging them closer with a flourish of his cards. Soon, he had another crowd to enchant surrounding him, and he easily slipped back into he familiar persona he awoke with.

 

That, at least, was still consistent. Even if everything else in his new life felt like scattered pieces of a puzzle, his dazzling personality was always there for him to fall back on.

 

For a few hours, he charmed the crowd and gave readings to whoever had the coin for it. It was during the middle of one that that voice returned, a comforting and tender croon in his ears.

 

‘ _Oh, there she is. I was wondering if she’d ever show up._ ’

 

Mollymauk resisted the urge to lift his head and search for this mysterious ‘she.’ Instead, he took a deep breath and revealed the final card to his customer. While his mouth moved, reciting the meaning without much thought, he directed his mind towards that voice.

 

_Where?_

 

A thrill of delight shot up his spin, making him jerk upward as if someone had run their cold hand down his naked back. No one seemed to notice, thankfully. Or that he stiffened at the sound of a joyful laugh and a single word.

 

‘ _Left.’_

 

This time, his head did snap up, and his eyes immediately locked onto a mismatched pair staring right at him.

 

The woman they belonged to was.... massive. Like a pile of boulders covered in flowers had decided to get up and start walking. With her general physique, the way her matted and tangled hair cast shadows across her bone white skin, and the intensity of her stare, Molly had no doubt that people tended to avoid her like the plague. And the gargantuan sword hanging across her back, the hilt peeking out over her well-defines shoulder, definitely did not make her look any less intimidating. She was a monster in her own right, a terrifyingly beautiful monster.

 

So why did he feel this sudden intense need to go to her?

 

Molly did not even realize he had started moving, making to pack up and walk to her, when the voice in the back of his head muttered a single, infuriating word.

 

‘ _Patience...._ ’

 

And to make sure he listened, he felt a force on his shoulders, as if a pair of hands were forcing him to sit and finish he reading his customer was eagerly awaiting. He obeyed with only mild grumbling, but he flashed the woman a charming smile before turning his attention back on the person in front of him.

 

Half focused on the cards and what he was saying, Mollymauk gave two more readings before the crowd seemed to thin. Whether it was because the ones watching him got bored or something else, something otherworldly, drew them away, soon the only one standing before him was that mountain of a woman. And she seemed to realize it at the same time he did. The embarrassment and fear and something else in her eyes were familiar, because Molly had felt that horrible combination many, __many__  times since he had crawled out of his shallow grave. That combination had led him to slipping away the first moment he had the chance, and Molly refused to let her do the same. He was sure the voice in his head would never let him live it down if he did.

 

“Like what you see?” he offered, catching her attention and starting her out of whatever thoughts had taken up the majority of her mind. When her eyes narrowed slightly, staring at him and __through__  him, a unknown worry coiled and tightened around his core.

 

Molly was not sure what exactly was happening, but he knew it deserved something more than his usual grin and wink and charming personality that drew the kind of people who did not want to look deeper than the surface. This woman, whoever she was, was looking for something __more.__ Molly had no idea what that was and it scared him. He did not know himself anymore, much less what he had to give, and so he fell back on what was familiar, what was comfortable. And it was not right, but he did not know what was right, only what was wrong.

 

He ignored the thought that said it was __him__  that was wrong.

 

When the woman smiled, it was forced, and that thought swelled and threatened to drown him.

 

“Those cards are beautifully painted. Where did you get them?”

 

Easy question. __Simple__ question. He could do this.

 

Molllymauk spun some bullshit about how the cards had been in his family for generations, despite the disapproval from the voice in his head urging him to tell her the truth. Tell her that the cards had been in the pocket of a jacket hanging on a large stick that had been his crude grave marker. The jacket he was currently wearing, actually, and that the woman was looking over with such intent that it stole the breath from his lungs, making his words spill out faster and faster as if he would run out of air. Mollymauk brushed the voice aside and tried to focus only on making his lie as convincing as possible.

 

It was clear that she did not believe a single word of it.

 

She indulged him anyway.

 

“They’re…. very pretty.”

 

 _ _Keep going,__ his mind said, carried by the mounting anxiety in his chest. __Speak fast, speak confidently - get through this conversation and slip away. You can have a breakdown later once you’re far, far away from this woman.__

__

__‘Don’t you fucking dare.’_ _

__

The voice in his head was more firm than it had ever been. Any hint of amusement that it had had before was completely gone, replaced by a sorrow-driven anger and disbelief that lassoed his anxiety and strangled it until it crumbled away like ash.There was an almost-there touch pressing against his chest and his cheek and his hair and his back, keeping him seated but offering so much comfort and affection that Molly felt like he was going to be overwhelmed by the genuine emotion coming from whoever the voice in his head belonged to. Along with his own emotions, they roiled low in his stomach, bubbling like he had eaten something questionable and now it was returning with a vengeance. He felt like he was going to throw up. He felt like he was going to burst out of his skin if he did not __run__  that very second. He felt a lot of something and nothing, and most of them he could not even describe even if he wanted to.

 

He had no idea what was going to happen next. So he did what he always did: improvised.

 

“Care for a reading?”

 

Just like that, the air cleared, and Molly could breathe.

 

He was not really aware of what he and the woman said - something about money, he thought. He was too focused on not trying to mess this up. Whatever this was, whoever this woman was, she was important. In what way, Molly was not sure, but he knew down in his bones that she was so, __so__  important and that losing her would be the worst mistake of his life.

 

In the back of his mind, Molly knew he should almost be afraid of the intensity of his own emotion towards a complete stranger. If it had been admiration or affection or attraction, he would have been. But this emotion was harder to pin down; it was a soft familiarity that ran deeper than anything else Molly had ever experienced. So he just went along with it, letting it curl around and settle like a fat, content, cat in his chest; and a warmth spread throughout his fingers when he reached for his cards as the woman sat across from him and placed the flower crown he had over his horns.

 

And when her fingers followed the curve of his ear and tucked a lock of purple hair behind it? The cat purred loudly. Molly resisted the urge to lean into her touch.

 

“Sorry,” she blurted out, snatching her hand back and dropping her gaze into her lap. She missed how he unconsciously chased her warmth until he came back to himself and sat back. But he did listen to the encouraging nudge from his the voice in his head that had him reach out and lift her head with a gentle touch to her chin. His fingertips barely ghosted along her skin, but that warmth, that connection, was there. The smile he gave her when she mt his eyes was soft and honest and maybe a little bit teasing, and the way the corners of her mouth quirked upwards was well worth the blurred boundaries between a pair of strangers.

 

Pulling away from her, Molly went back to his cards but did not look away from her. He didn’t need to. He knew these cards as well as his own hands.

 

Not long after he woke up, he realized that other than the literal clothes on his back he had nothing but a note and an incomplete deck of tarot cards. And those cards had become his lifeline, his everything. He had used them to relearn how his hands worked - and even learned that most of his fingers were double-jointed - and how to read, spending long nights learning what the cards said and researching what they meant. They had given him a way to survive: to make coin so he had food in his stomach and a roof over his head, to meet new people so he knew where he was and where to go next, to stayed anchored in reality so that he would not fall victim to his racing thoughts during the wickedly early hours of the morning. They had become an extension of himself, to the point where Mollymauk would absentmindedly twirl one around his fingers when speaking or thinking or just blissfully existing with the world moving around him, paying him no mind.

 

Eventually he had to buy a new set as he became more popular and his readings more involved, but the old one still sat in his back, wrapped in lace and tucked away into a satin pouch.

 

As he shuffled the new deck, he grinned up at the woman. “So, what would you like to ask the cards?”

 

“Can I ask about a friend? He’s… missing.”

 

The stutter in her voice gave him pause, but he went back to shuffling without asking her about it. Despite the calm he felt around her, it was not really his place to go prying into her life.

 

Even if the voice in his head __really__ wanted him to. It was practically smacking him on the arm to annoy him into submission, and it took all of Molly’s willpower not to give in to its insistence and his own burning curiosity.

“Of course! The cards are always listening. Ask whatever you want, darling.”

 

There was a moment of silence where all she did was stare. Not at the cards, but at him. Her two toned eyes, gleaming like a pair of jewels against her deathly pale skin and between the curtain of her peculiar hair, did not look seme to stop at his physical form, though, which didn’t even make sense to him. They looked through him, something she seemed to do a lot and with an ease that did not seem plausible for a complete stranger, and settled somewhere near where that fat, happy cat had curled up.

 

As if realizing that she was there, that cat sprang up and pressed against her consciousness that Mollymauk would swear up and down later when he was very, very drunk he could actually __feel__. Like it was a tangible thing he could grasp at and curl around and nestle against his chest like the most fragile flower.

 

And then Molly was back, the world returning with sharp, almost painful clarity with the sudden, distant shrill of a child.

 

The woman was still staring, but now at him. And he missed whatever her question was.

 

__Shit._ _

__

Focusing on keeping his hands and his resolve steady, Molly distractedly plucked three cards from the deck and laid them face-down onto the scarf draped over his small table. It wasn’t as gaudy as the rest of his get-up. Just a simple, gauzy grey scarf that shimmered with blues and purples and silvers when the light his it just right, just as it was now. Molly took a brief moment to watch the threads shine before lifting his head with a vibrant grin that did not quite reach his eyes.

 

“And who is this mysterious ‘he?’”

 

He continued his spiel, toeing the thin line between professional showmanship and familiar camaraderie, and replied and moved automatically, only half-listening to her. All the while, the voice in his head was being frustratingly pressing.

 

‘ _ _Enough with the questions. Just get on with the reading and the note!’__

__

__Nope._ _

 

‘ _ _But-’__

__

__You made me wait long enough to just__ meet _ _this woman, whoever the hell she is,__  he practically snarled. Molly did not want to be short with the voice, but it had dragged him all over creation ever since he had woken up, keeping him distant with vague answers while sidling up to him with the closeness of an intimate friend with no input from him whatsoever. Even though he could not do much but think angrily at it, Molly was not going to sit by and let the voice do whatever it wanted to him. He was not going to be some puppet or some pawn on a board. If this voice wanted him to listen to badly, he was going to make it sit back and listen to him do reading after goddamn reading until it realized that he wasn’t just going to go along with whatever it said and shut up until he was good and ready.

 

__You can wait a little longer. Be. Patient._ _

__

__‘Aren’t I supposed to be the one telling you that?’_ _

__

__I don’t care._ _

__

The voice acquiesced with a huff that seemed more humoring than anything. __‘Fine, finish your reading. But you might want to pay attention to what she’s saying, by the way.’__

__

__What?_ _

__

“You remind me a lot of him.”

__

Molly’s hand stilled over the first card, and he looked up into her face. What he saw was so vulnerable, that he dropped his hands into his lap and let her talk, and he hung onto her every word.

 

“He was a bit of an asshole, never really cared about what other people thought of him and made sure everyone knew it, but he was kind. Very kind. He always tried to make every place he left better than when he found it.”

 

“And would you say he succeeded?”

 

His throat was dry and his words were almost lost to the sudden roar in his ears. Those words - leaving every place better than you found it - Molly __knew__  those words. Those were the words that the voice had said to him the first time he had pleaded with it for some kind of sign, some kind of direction. It was its first command: __make everywhere and everyone better than when you find it.__ Molly had done the best he could to follow that order, and it had been surprisingly easy. So easy, in fact, that the voice had never mentioned those words again, and they had never cropped up as a less-than-subtle sign in his life, either.

 

Until now, at least.

 

The woman, unaware of his inner turmoil, smiled softly. “Yes. He certainly left me better.”

 

‘ _ _Take her hand, Mollymauk, and keep going. This is important. I need you here for this.’__

 

That was an order he would not argue with, and the feeling of her hand beneath his grounded him to the present for the time being. The way her eyes met his, unashamed and unafraid, gave him some fortitude to speak up, pretend like nothing was wrong and even bring another one of those gentle smiles to her face before he went back to the cards.

 

His hand, far less sure than it had been earlier, flipped over the first card: The High Priestess, reversed.

 

“It appears this wild and mysterious world has your friend in a bit of a bind,” Molly began, as his mind started to drift elsewhere.

 

It was back at that first night in a shitty tavern. The rain had been heavy, and a persistent leak in the poorly thatched roof had kept him awake. So he had sat up in bed and, in a moment of foolishness that had followed him since, read his own fortune.

 

The first card had been the High Priestess, reversed.

 

“He has lost faith in himself and so judges the going-ons of this world with the eyes of another. If you find him, tell him to relax a bit and to trust himself more, hmm? He’s smarter than he thinks.”

 

He had frowned long and hard at that card. Despite the fact that he had not really believed in the veracity of the cards, and still did not, he believed in the meaning of them. And that first time he had read his fortune, he had brushed it aside as he did most readings.

 

The second time had been a coincidence, he had tried to convince himself as he had flipped the second card: The Lover.

 

“Interesting...,” he said over the detailed painting of a pair of dryads winding around each other within the trunk of a tree, their hair coming together to form the twisting branches and pale pink leaves.

 

Of course, three times made a pattern, and Molly was sure that if he flipped that last care now he would see the The Star, reversed.

 

So he changed the fortune.

 

Flipping over the card, he stealthily pulled a creased note from his sleeve and covered the face of the card. The paper was soft with much handling but well-taken care of. Mollymauk wanted to make sure the note lasted as long as it could. They words on it were the first full sentence he could recall being able to read and understand, and even though he had no idea where it came from it instilled a sense of peace within him whenever he read those words.

 

The Mighty Nein… whoever they were, they knew him. They wanted to see him again.

 

And Mollymauk wanted to meet them.

 

“You wouldn’t happen to know who these ‘Mighty Nein’ are, would you?”

 

__Please tell me you know._ _

__

That __had__  to be why she was there, right? Why the owner of the voice of his head had guided him to this dumb city almost four months ago and had him stay until the festival. Why when the woman had showed up it had felt like a fork of lightening had hit him. It just __had__ to be…

 

__I’m begging you._ _

 

But the woman frowned and shook her head, and Molly’s hope came crashing down. He tried to brush it off with a weak chuckle and a wave of his hand, snatching up the note and tucking it away before she had a chance to get another look at it. Underneath it was the Star, reversed.

 

Just like he knew it would be.

 

He did not care anymore, though, about this ridiculous pattern. Molly just wanted to get far, far away from this woman and his cards and this ridiculous day. And he wanted the voice in his head to shut up for a moment and let him be upset. He’d be back to his normal self tomorrow; right now he just wanted to get drunk. So he started packing up with a hasty apology and with the intent to run off and hide somewhere so he could break down in peace. Molly did not notice the woman move until, as he turned to flee, he felt her hand take his.

 

Her touch was light, far lighter than a woman her size should have been capable of, but it felt like a tight shackle around his hand and his chest and his throat, choking him and nearly pushing the sobs up out of his frame all at the same time. It kept him frozen to the spot as she slowly got to her feet to stand over him with a low groan. When she let go, though, the binds tightened, and Molly clutched onto the strap of his satchel and wound his flower-lined tail tightly around his calf to keep from launching himself into her embrace. Then he just stared and waited.

 

For a brief moment, Molly nibbling on his lower lip and this woman being far too awkward and trying to look him in the eye while looking anywhere but at him, the world melted around them. The sounds of the festival faded, the sights and smells diminished until they were barely there at all, and what only remained was Molly, the mystery woman, and whatever untold truth bridged the gap between them.

 

He turned to the voice in his head and asked, __What do I do now?__

__

It did not answer.

 

Of course it didn’t. If Molly had not laughed, he was sure he would’ve cried. The hand she touched, still tingling with something he’d try to understand later, dragged through his hair and snagged on roots and stems and the occasional snarl. But the pain grounded him, and Molly raked his fingers through his hair a couple more times.

 

“Sorry, not sure what just got into then,” he said, trying to lighten the whatever the hell had just happened. “Maybe we could forget that ever happened, and I-”

 

“I understand.”

 

Molly met her mismatched eyes from between his fingers. He was sure the sorrow and the confusion in her gaze mirrored his perfectly. He did not know how she understood when he did not even understand it fully himself, but he was sure she did. And he hated whatever it was that had made her so closely acquainted with such pain.

 

“I hope you find what you’re looking for,” she said, spearing through the fog in his mind and getting to the root of his problem with a gracelessness that was oddly endearing. “Whatever it is you’re looking for.”

 

Despite everything, he smiled. “Me too. And your friend? Wherever he is, I hope he knows he’s got the best waiting for him.”

 

‘ _ _You do.__ ’

 

“I’m sure he does.”

 

The words were simultaneously, layering over each other like the chords of a song that flowed together seamlessly.

 

Molly missed the woman unwinding the colorful scarf around her shoulders and gingerly draping it over his. She was careful not to touch him, but he caught the faintest whiff of a familiar scent: lavender and something else. He was not sure what that something else was, but he had smelled it once when aimlessly walking through a town not long after he had woken up. The scent was so strong it had lingered in his nose and on his skin for the rest of the day, and Molly had stayed up late into the night inhaling it from his coat as a comforting, unknown memory gently lulled him to sleep. The next morning, he had spent what little gold he had to buy as many vials of it as possible.

 

And she was wearing it.

 

He wasn’t sure where exactly he was going with all this. The cards, the voice, the smell - it all meant __something.__ The answer to a question he barely knew was somewhere in the pieces he had just been given, but he needed time to put them all together, to just sit and think…

 

The woman’s voice pulled him out of his thoughts. She gestured awkwardly at the scarf. “It goes with your eyes.”

 

“Everything does, dear. And as payment for this…”

 

This, though, he did not need to think about it. Digging in his satchel, he pulled out a vial of that oil and a small charm. Lined with dark blue gems set in silver that seemed to glow in the moonlight, it was his favorite of the many symbols of the Moonweaver he had encountered. He passed her the vial and then reached up to gently braid the charm into her peculiar but beautiful hair.

 

“Can’t get something for nothing, now can I?” he asked softly as he pulled back, the back of his hand brushing along a lock of hair over her shoulder. He could not resist throwing in a wink, something to make this situation feel a bit more normal.

 

“Speaking of that, name’s Mollymauk Tealeaf. At your service…?”

 

“Yasha.”

 

“At your service, Yasha.”

 

The name rolled off his forked tongue with ease, and he followed it up with a deep, exaggerated bow that had Yasha rolling her eyes with a chuckle.

 

“You have been an absolute delight. While I wish I could stay longer, the day is still young, and I have many, many more readings to give before it’s over. I hope to see you again in the near future, though.”

 

Molly meant every word -

 

“Yeah, me too,” she responded.

 

\- He was sure Yasha did too.

 

He took her hand, placed a gentle kiss against the back of it, and then turned and walked off. He walked until he was sure she could not longer see him. Then he ran.

 

Molly ran all the way back to the room he had rented, slammed the door shut behind him, and leaned against it with his hand pressed against his pounding heart. His mind was a hurricane of thoughts and emotions that he could not even being to sift through, only most of them his own.

 

‘ _ _What do you think you’re doing?__ ’the voice in his head demanded over his haggard breaths. __‘Go after her!’__

__

“I can’t,” he choked out. Molly slumped to the floor. “I-I need time to __process__  all this.”

 

Because there was something he was missing, something important that was far beyond him and this woman, this Yasha. Either he was missing the answer that was blatantly obvious or he was looking too closely at a much larger picture and missing the meaning of the whole. He knew he would not be able to think about it now, not with his own mind working currently against him and a disembodied voice shouting in his ears.

 

‘ _ _You’ll have time later! If you don’t go after her now, there will be nothing to process. You will lose__ everything __we’ve worked towards__ , __Mollymauk.__ ’

 

Groaning, he dropped his face into his hands. Instead of his skin and his own floral scent he had grown accustomed to, though, his nose was filled with something sharp and, underneath that, lavender and the something else of Yasha. Slowly, he wound the scarf around his neck until he could bury his nose in it. Each deep breath he took, the smell filled his lungs, and each exhale took bit by bit the worry that was growing in his chest until he could breath normally.

 

‘ _ _Mollymauk?’__  the voice called out, softer this time. ‘ _ _What’re you going to do?’__

__

He took another steadying breath.

 

“I’m going to take tonight to think and figure this all out. And then…”

 

‘ _ _...”then” what?’__

__

“Then we’re going to find Yasha and this Mighty Nein, whoever they are. I don’t think we’re done with them quite yet.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was not sure if I was going to get this done before I left for my trip, but here it is! I've been wanting to write a Mollymauk POV to this for a while, and I'm glad I finally finished it.
> 
> Hope you like it!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. I hoped you enjoyed it!
> 
> It’s been a while since I’ve written anything (and I’m more than a little rusty), but there was a picture I saw on tumblr (that I can’t seem to find again) of Molly being rebirthed as a dryad that inspired this fic and stuck with me for about a week. I couldn’t not write it. So I hope you liked reading it as much as I liked writing it.
> 
> Some final notes: That vial is definitely the oil Molly gave her back when they were at the circus. And the charm he wove into her hair was a little symbol of the Moonweaver, which Jester points out as soon as Yasha catches up with the Nein. Yasha refuses to take it out of her hair after that.


End file.
